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28/10/2015

In the promotional
blurb, Kit
Brookman’s new play – A
Rabbit for Kim Jong-Il – is described as “a cunning comic thriller
spanning two continents,” as being “crammed with secret agents, espionage, [and]
double-crossings,” and as being “a pointed parable about betrayal and
forgiveness, greed and regret.” The only trouble is, it’s not quite any of
those things, least of all a thriller.

18/10/2015

First performed in
1901, Chekhov’s
Three Sisters is a play about love,
the question (and delusion) of love, and the notion of happiness and/or
contentedness. Perhaps not as bleak as Ivanov,
or as elegantly poignant as The
Seagull, Three Sisters is
still undeniably Chekhovian in its depiction of a group of people caught up in
their foibles and their lives, with much philosophising and talk of fate and
the future that lies ahead of them. The three Pozorov sisters – Olga, Masha,
and Irina – are stuck in a provincial town hundreds of miles from Moscow, and one day dream
of returning to their beloved city; fate, however, has other ideas, and life
overtakes them, further anchoring them to the small town. In one sense, it is a
comedy in the Chekhovian sense, but at the same time it is very much a drama.
This production at the Genesian
Theatre is undeniably a comedy, but not as Chekhov ever intended it.

13/10/2015

Perhaps it’s an
indication of our shift in socio-cultural thinking, that a lot of the narrative
tropes we take for granted in popular culture are being turned on their head
and examined in the theatre, on film, in books and comics and other mediums. Like
All
About Medea recently, SUDS’ Manic Pixie Dream World (henceforth MPDW) draws on the
manic-pixie-dream-girl trope and problematises it like it deserves, making recent
filmic forays such as Ruby Sparks look rather mild
and clumsy by comparison.

10/10/2015

Written in 1592,
Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II
is a spectacular exploration of what happens when passion and politics mix,
when desires and allegiances are compromised, and what happens when you are
forced to choose one over the other. While Marlowe’s Edward pursues his desires
over good government and lawfulness, his play has perhaps been eclipsed by another
Elizabethan play about a transgressive king faced with a similar choice.
That is not to denigrate Marlowe’s play which is strong by itself but, like Edward II, Sport for Jove’s production suffers
from following its passion for accessibility and contemporaneity rather than
its foundations in solid dramatic traditions.

03/10/2015

Released in 1956,
Albert Lamorisse’s film The Red Balloon is a near-wordless
story of a boy and an almost-sentient balloon in post-war Paris. It’s a beautiful film, whimsical and
charming to boot, but rewatching
it now, there’s a curious emptiness in the film which makes it even more
poignant. This
production, adapted by Hilary
Bell from Lamorisse’s film (not the subsequent slightly over-sentimental
book he fashioned from it) and designed by India
Mehta, takes note of this emptiness and creates a poignant piece of theatre
which never feels forced or indulgent.

It’s an
interesting coincidence that there are two plays currently playing on national
mainstages that deal quite substantially with the idea of extinction. Malthouse’s
They
Saw A Thylacine, and Black Swan’s
Extinction talk
around and about the issue, not just examining its ramifications, but also
about the role we humans play in the process, the way we can prevent mass extinctions
through changing the way we behave and act. Hannie Rayson’s Extinction
adds another layer to the mix, in examining the idea of ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’
money – money that comes from ethically-grey sources, in this case, a coal-mining
company. It’s a bold move for Black Swan to produce this play, as their major
sponsor is mining giant Rio Tinto, and the play’s very existence further
examines this idea simply by being programmed, staged, and written about.